There is considerable interest among those in the field of information processing to simplify the operation of processing systems used to manage information. Operational requirements have been simplified by the development of "interfaces" between a processing system and an operator which are easy to use. One well known type of system-operator interface is a so-called "graphical user interface" or GUI which displays a representation of a desktop and various objects on the desktop such as pages of documents and desk accessories. The representation of pages represent information and the representation of desk accessories represent functions provided by the processing system which may be used to manage the information.
The term graphical user interface or GUI lacks a precise formal definition, but it is generally understood to refer to a system-operator interface which utilizes graphical capabilities of system displays. Examples of such GUIs are provided by software offered under the trademarks "Windows," "OS/2 Presentation Manager," "OSF/Motif" and "Macintosh Finder."
In contrast to these graphics-mode interfaces, some so-called text-mode interfaces offer many of the benefits of true GUIs. One example of such a text-mode interface is provided by software offered under the trademark "DESQview."
The term GUI as used herein refers to both graphics-mode and text-mode interfaces. It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that some of the features described below are better implemented using graphics-mode interfaces; however, text-mode interfaces can closely simulate the appearance of true GUIs by using geometric-shaped characters. The emphasis herein is upon the way in which an operator may interact with an information processing system rather than upon details of technology implementing the interface.
The representation of desk accessories such as facsimile machines, in/out boxes and trash cans are typically static images or "icons" which resemble corresponding real-life tangible objects. The icons represent system processes which perform functions similar to the functions performed by the tangible objects suggested by the icons. For example, an icon suggesting a facsimile machine represents a system process which sends and/or receives a "fax" and an icon suggesting a trash can represents a system process for discarding or deleting information.
Pages of documents, which correspond to stored information, may be represented by icons or they may be represented by dynamic images which are miniature replicas of the information as it would appear on a printed page. The term "document" is used herein to refer to a wide variety of stored information which may be displayed or represented on printed pages. Miniature replicas of document pages may represent text and/or graphical information printed by suitable processing software.
The use of miniature replicas to represent pages of information is often preferred even though more processing resources are required to generate and display the replicas. Such use is preferred because it can simplify the task of identifying a document. The miniature replicas provide a direct means for identifying the contents of a document as opposed to indirect means such as a static icon with a name or short title associated with the document. Documents containing multiple pages can be represented by a plurality of miniature replicas, one replica for each page.
An "Apparatus for Manipulating Documents in a Data Processing System Utilizing Reduced Images of Sets of Information which are Movable" is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,060,135, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The disclosure describes forming miniature replicas, referred to therein as "stamps," and also describes arranging stamps into stacks. The representation of each page in an aligned stack is offset slightly both vertically and horizontally in a manner suggesting a stack of pages. The disclosure describes a GUI in which stacks may be managed as an entity; for example, the contents of all of the pages in a stack may be electronically mailed. The disclosure also describes a few functions which may be performed with the top page in the stack such as removing the page from the stack or adding an annotation to the page.
A GUI can simplify the operations required to manage information in a processing system by allowing an operator to interact with representations in a way which emulates familiar activities with tangible objects. For example, the operator may transmit a document facsimile by using the GUI to move a representation of the document to a facsimile machine icon. The operator may accomplish these interactions using a keyboard and/or a "pointing device" such as a mouse, a trackball, a joystick, a light pen, or a stylus with an electronic tablet. A display screen provides visual feedback to the operator. Generally, the operator may use a pointing device and/or a keyboard to move a visible marker or "cursor" within the area shown by the screen, and the pointing device and/or the keyboard may be used to enter information or to make certain selections.
Despite the improvements offered by interfaces such as a GUI, the manipulation of multi-page documents is hindered by the lack of a way to easily move or navigate within a stack of pages and to perform functions with any given page within a stack.